On October 13, Wenzhou Metaverse Innovation Center officially opened, which is the first industrial park in Wenzhou with the theme of Metaverse and blockchain.
On the same day, the special forum on "Virtual and Real Synergy, Industrial Metaverse Empowering Intelligent Manufacturing" was held in Wenzhou Metaverse Innovation Center. In the roundtable session entitled "What can the Yuan Universe bring to the intelligent manufacturing industry", Wang Lei, CEO of Babbitt and QTA-Wang Lei, the time manager of Yuan Universe, had a wonderful dialogue with four guests. Chi Cheng, director of the Technology Research Department of the Internet and Internet of Things Research Institute, He Zhan, head of Omniverse in NVIDIA China, Wang Yigang, deputy dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Digital Media, Hangzhou Dianzi University, and Xiang Wenjie, co-founder of Hangzhou Lingban Technology.
Wang Lei: The Nvidia Omniverse platform is very popular now. Can you share some data about what kind of platform it is.
He Zhan:
At present, there are nearly 200,000 users around the world, and more than 700 well-known international and domestic companies have cooperated and used Omniverse to realize their digital transformation and digital industrial digital twins, such as BMW, a leading enterprise in the automotive industry. In addition, we see that there are 41 million user groups who are from majors and have design capabilities. This is the stock user market on the C-end that we see. We look forward to continuously lowering the technical threshold so that ordinary people and people who are not from majors can also use it.
Wang Lei: What valuable things can this platform provide for enterprises in Wenzhou?
He Zhan:
There are many successful enterprises in Wenzhou, and marketing is the constant focus of enterprises. Let me cite one example of our cooperation with some well-known domestic and international shoe and apparel companies. We are doing digital clothing, shoes, and accessories. We are connected through digital technology through the entire supply chain from design and development to product production, to the final delivery to consumers.
In the future, when consumers buy shoes, they can use AR applications on their mobile phones to experience the color and material of digital shoes. Even realizing customized needs, such as flipping the logo, can be transmitted to the R&D end of the enterprise, and even directly place an order for production, and finally express it to consumers. All of this can be achieved through technology, and we hope to bring such technology to enterprises in Wenzhou.
Wang Lei: In your opinion, what is the Industrial Metaverse, and can you give us a simple popularization.
Pond length:
Everyone's understanding and understanding of the metaverse is different. From our perspective, the metaverse can be divided into two types from the relationship between "virtual and real". The first category is from virtual to real. It is based on the independent creation of the virtual world, emphasizing the realization of the realization of digital experience. It can not only form a value system independent of the real world, but also have an impact on the real world, and finally form an enhanced metaverse. , the typical representative is the consumer metaverse we often mention; the second is from real to virtual, based on the imitation of the real world in the virtual world, through the construction of immersive digital experience, the digital experience of real life is enhanced, and the digitization of real experience is emphasized. The direction will form a virtual metaverse, and the industrial metaverse is a typical embodiment.
The foothold of the industrial metaverse is industrial production. Different from the consumer metaverse, the industrial metaverse puts more emphasis on visualization, accuracy, and tuning. Compared with building new scenes and experiences, the industrial metaverse pays more attention to solving precise The exact problem in the scenario. The Industrial Metaverse will bring us digital production systems and intelligent applications with better visual experience, higher accuracy, and more outstanding performance, effectively improving the efficiency of our industrial production and reducing energy consumption in industrial production.
Wang Lei: Which applications or scenarios in the Industrial Metaverse are you more optimistic about?
Pond length:
The products and application scenarios of the industrial metaverse should be divided into different stages. According to the different degrees of virtual and real integration, ecological connectivity, human-computer interaction and information interaction, the development stages of the industrial metaverse can be divided into local twinning, regional symbiosis and global integration. There are three stages of birth. At present, most industrial metaverse applications are in the stage of partial twinning.
The partial twin stage belongs to the initial stage of development. In this stage, the production process and demand structure in the real world have not changed, and the mode of online and offline integration will continue to accelerate evolution in the form of immersive experience. Taking industrial inspection as an example, in the early days, inspection could only be carried out manually. With the continuous advancement of informatization and digitization, information-based auxiliary tools and digital automatic inspection methods gradually appeared, which reduced the inspection to a certain extent. Information deviation improves the inspection efficiency. After XR and other technologies are widely used in the future, inspectors can directly see the real-time data and related early warning information of digital equipment.
Wang Lei: In your opinion, what are the differences between the Industrial Metaverse and the Industrial Internet?
Pond length:
The Industrial Internet is a new type of infrastructure, application model and industrial ecology that is deeply integrated with the new generation of information and communication technology and the industrial economy. Through the comprehensive connection of people, machines, things, systems, etc., a new network covering the entire industry chain and the entire value chain is built. manufacturing and service systems.
We started to continuously promote the technical research and industrial development of the Industrial Internet in about 17 years. The Industrial Internet puts more emphasis on "connection", including the interconnection of networks and the intercommunication of data. Through the combination with industrial mechanisms, a data-driven closed loop is formed.
The industrial metaverse is a collection of technologies, and the key technologies in the industrial Internet are also important components supporting the construction of the industrial metaverse. However, compared with the Industrial Internet, the introduction of digital identities and digital assets is the key to ensuring the continuous operation of the Industrial Metaverse.
At present, although data elements are important means of production, the current Internet cannot support the transformation of data elements into means of production. Therefore, a new type of service network is built based on the blockchain to ensure the circulation of data elements in a wider range and at a higher level.
Wang Lei: You mentioned super workers. In your opinion, how can enterprises in Wenzhou build super workers?
Xiang Wenjie:
Now there are two trends in the industry. One is that experienced masters are gradually retiring, and more and more novices; and because the front-line work in the factory is boring and inefficient, the work is complicated and the sense of value is also low. Factories are less willing.
Therefore, the industrial metaverse and super workers we are discussing are exploring how to enable front-line workers to use virtual and real AR digital technology to have stronger professional capabilities and make the work of front-line workers easier and more efficient. This is actually today. A big trend.
Wang Lei: Hangzhou Lingban Technology has launched software and hardware products in the field of 5G+AI+AR. What role do 5G and AI play in it? Is it indispensable? In addition, the so-called "soft" and "hard" relationship?
Xiang Wenjie:
When you go to the factory operation site, you will find that the boundaries of workers' capabilities will be obvious, and what really helps workers is the ability of AI. For example, using the virtual image and operation prompts combined by the helmet can make the work more efficient and standardized, and when encountering problems, AI will bring more value. For example, in the 100 decibel noise environment of the factory, workers need to wear earplugs when they work. The AR device X-Craft independently developed by Hangzhou Lingban Technology can accurately recognize the instructions of workers in the noisy environment, as well as the second-level recognition of instruments and meters. AI capabilities.
The second question, in fact, the experience will be better when software and hardware are combined. For example, when you want the product to be able to communicate and recognize normally when it is above 100 decibels, you need to do your best in every link such as design, chip selection, process tuning, algorithm tuning, etc., and finally surpass 100 decibels that limit. Therefore, we put more emphasis on the "combination of software and hardware", so as to surpass the average level of the current market and achieve the best product level.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that we do everything by ourselves. A company can’t do everything. It just means that some key links will choose independent development to solve customer pain points.
Wang Lei: In your opinion, what aspects of the manufacturing industry can the various technologies of the Metaverse be applied to?
Wang Yigang:
I will talk about this issue from the following five aspects.
First, in the future, these technologies of Metaverse will definitely continue to play a role in product design, assembly verification, and simulation.
Second, technology companies like META use metaverse technology for social and metaverse collaboration, so these technologies can also be used in the field of industrial collaboration.
Third, digital twins. Complete the modeling of the digital model of the real product, and then monitor the digital model to realize the monitoring and maintenance of the product's full life cycle, and also control the product remotely.
Fourth, it can be used in the design or evaluation of new products. For example, after a new product is designed, it can be evaluated and adjusted with the help of metaverse technology. Thereby avoiding the product being produced only to find that it is not suitable.
Fifth, personalization. For example, let users experience and try out digital products. After users are satisfied, they will complete the order, and the brand will go to production.
Wang Lei: At present, what are the main pain points or bottlenecks that the manufacturing industry faces when using various technologies of Metaverse?
Wang Yigang:
Terminals in the metaverse are slowly getting cheaper today, but what do you do when you're in the metaverse with a helmet on? In fact, the content of the metaverse has not been fully built yet, so the lack of content is a big bottleneck.
In the industrial field, there are a lot of industrial software. Basically, the products of industrial production and design are all 3D. How can these 3D products be quickly transferred to the Metaverse? When enterprises are researching and constructing scenes, they can directly use , I think this is a very important problem to be solved now, a bottleneck.
Xiang Wenjie:
In terms of hardware and software costs, the maturity of various technologies, etc., there should be problems in all links.
However, the domestic development is still very fast, and there are many landing applications. It just may take some time to make typical cases so that more people can see, understand, and experience them, and then slowly infiltrate and promote them. In the process, the cost is also reduced and the technology is made more mature.
From our point of view, we do not expect it to explode immediately, but we hope that it can grow healthily in the past few years. The current growth is actually quite healthy, and a steady increase is not a bad thing. When we realize the value of the Internet, the Internet will have a greater growth rate, and so will the Industrial Metaverse.
Pond length:
In fact, there are more or less problems in terms of industrial policy, technological development, industrial application, and industrial chain ecology, but I mainly want to talk about the elements of industrial data. Industrial production itself has a large amount of heterogeneous and heterogeneous data in different places. How to apply these data to a deeper level is a key issue affecting the next stage of industrial development. As an important infrastructure, the industrial metaverse includes many elements of industrial production such as people, machines, and objects. The key to the construction of the industrial metaverse is to promote the factorization, value, and marketization of industrial data. At present, the construction of the industrial metaverse lacks a new service network for data elements, and promoting the evolution of industrial data to assets is the main problem currently facing.
Wang Lei: What kind of prospects do you think the Industrial Metaverse can develop within 5 years?
Wang Yigang:
Within 5 years, I hope to be able to solve the problem from industrial software to that kind of VR hardware display. Its data can be connected, virtual simulation or verification can be carried out, and its usability, safety, quality and other aspects can be finally determined.
Xiang Wenjie:
Maybe five years from now, everyone in the industrial field should have seen or experienced such an industrial metaverse product, but it is uncertain whether it can be widely used.
According to our internal research data, in the energy industry, only about 1% of people and companies have really come into contact with and understand AR/VR technology and the industrial metaverse. The number of people using it may be even fewer, and the penetration rate is very low. After 5 years, this figure should be able to reach about 20%.
Pond length:
Some organizations predict that by 2025, the size of the industrial metaverse market will reach 540 billion US dollars, which means that the average annual compound growth rate has exceeded 15%. Within 5 years, it will continue to promote the overall market growth rate of the manufacturing industry.
But I think the Industrial Metaverse will focus on the first stage in the next five years, which is the local twin stage. Although I believe that there will be a relatively good development in the next five years, overall the Industrial Metaverse is still in its infancy.
Wang Lei: If enterprises in Wenzhou are now preparing to enter or embrace the industrial metaverse, what preparations should they do?
Wang Yigang:
The first is to understand and get in touch with the latest VR/AR technology, the current penetration rate is still very low, and then go to see what you can do.
Xiang Wenjie:
The industrial metaverse and the metaverse, including Web3, should not be viewed separately. It would be very one-sided to look at them separately, because we are not welcoming an era of a pure industrial metaverse. These concepts will go hand in hand and continue to advance. As an entrepreneur, it will be more helpful to understand these things more actively to understand the overall development and future.
Pond length:
First of all, digitalization is an irreversible trend. We must continue to pay attention to the subsequent industrial development of the industrial metaverse and establish a correct understanding of the industrial metaverse.
Secondly, we must actively cooperate with the government to promote a new innovation system centered on enterprises that combines "government, production, learning, research, and application." technical advantages.
Third, we must give full play to Wenzhou's industrial advantages and actively explore some application scenarios of the industrial metaverse.
Finally, it is necessary to pay attention to the reserve of talents and the cultivation of interdisciplinary talents.
He Zhan:
The first step is to think about what is the most painful thing in your business operations? Is it to acquire customers, reduce costs, increase efficiency or something? If you think of these, go sinking. Second, think about which technologies can help everyone, can be integrated into the business processes of enterprises, and can be used in the process of digital transformation. Third, I also think it is to reserve some corporate talents in advance.